SYLVA 225 



10. From those silvan philosophers and divines (not 

 to speak much of the Indian Brahmans, or ancient 

 gymnosophists) 'tis believed that the great Pythagoras 

 might institute his silent monastery ; and we read that 

 Plato entertained his auditors amongst his walks of 

 trees, which were afterward defac'd by the inhumanity 

 of Sylla, when as Appian tells us, he cut down those 

 venerable shades to build forts against Piraeus : And 

 another we find he had, planted near Anicerides with 

 his own hands, wherein grew that celebrated platanus 

 under which he introduces his master Socrates dis- 

 coursing with Phaedrus de pulchro : Such another 

 place was the Athenian Cephisia, as Agellius des- 

 cribes it : We have already mention'd the stately 

 xysta^ with their shades, in cap. 23. Democritus also 

 taught in a grove, as we find in that of Hippocrates 

 to Damagetus, where there is a particular tree designed 

 ad otium literarum ; and I remember Tertullian calls 

 these places Studia opaca : Under such shades and walks 

 was at first the famous Academia, esteem'd so vener- 

 able, as it was by the old philosopher, prophane so 

 much as to laugh in it, see Laertius, ./Elian, &c. I 

 could here tell you of Palaemon, Timon, Apollonius, 

 Theophrastus, and many more that erected their 

 schools in such colleges of trees, but I spare my read- 

 er ; I shall only note, that 'tis reported of Thucydides, 

 that he compiled his noble History in the Scaptan 

 Groves, as Pliny writes ; and in that matchless piece de 

 Oratore^ we shall find the interlocutors to be often under 

 the platanus in his Tusculan villa, where invited by 

 the freshness and sweetness of the place, admonuit (says 

 one of them) me haec tua platanus quae non minus ad opa- 

 candum hunc locum patulis est diffusa ramis^ quam ///#, 

 cujus umbram secutus est Socrates, quae mihi mdetur non 



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